Previous IFPA-Fletcher Conferences

The 33rd IFPA-Fletcher Conference
on
National Security Strategy and Policy

October 16-17, 2002
The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.

Two Retired Generals Voice Doubts over Bush's Plan To Attack Iraq

By Dale Eisman, The Virginian-Pilot

Washington—Amid reports of unease among senior uniformed leaders about a possible war with Iraq, one of the Bush administration's top policy makers faced a roomful of generals, admirals, diplomats and military planners Wednesday to argue that the ouster of Saddam Hussein "will be a defeat for terrorists globally." But while Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spent nearly an hour laying out the administration's case, there were signs aplenty that a corps of experienced military leaders remains skeptical about President Bush's plans to attack Iraq.

"We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started," retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni told the annual Fletcher Conference on National Security Strategy shortly after Wolfowitz's presentation.

Zinni's blunt critique -- bolstered by a similar assessment from retired four-star Marine Gen. John J. Sheehan -- drew a smattering of applause.

While insisting that Bush has made no decision to fight, Wolfowitz laid out a series of questions raised by critics of a war and attacked the reasoning behind each.

"The risks are very real, and no sensible person would lightly undertake an operation that risks the lives of our marvelous men and women in uniform," he said. But the longer the United States waits, the greater the chance that Iraq will have acquired chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and the means to use them, he argued.

Wolfowitz brushed aside suggestions that forcibly removing Saddam will trigger instability throughout the Middle East. Just as the experience of Soviet domination in eastern Europe has created deep resistance there against a return to communism, the experience of life under Saddam "will encourage powerful resistance to the emergence of another harsh dictatorship" after his fall, Wolfowitz said.

Zinni and Sheehan countered that Saddam can easily be contained. Zinni said a lack of knowledge over what weapons Iraq has isn't a sufficient reason to attack.

"In other words, we are going to go to war over another intelligence failure," Zinni said.

Zinni compared the challenge facing the United States in the Middle East and central Asia to the one it successfully met in rebuilding Europe after World War II.

Then, the United States focused not only on containing the Soviets but also on confronting their ideology and by demonstrating the superiority of free markets and free elections, he said. In contrast, the Bush administration is focused on terrorist acts and Iraq's drive to acquire weapons of mass destruction but is not dealing with the causes of unrest.

"If we deal with terrorism, we deal with the tactical part... But you have not hit at the center of gravity," he said. "The center of gravity is a bunch of disenfranchised young men. And they are flocking to a cause that has nothing to do with religion or ideology. They are flocking to a cause because of their political, social, and economic condition, their sense of being wronged." Sheehan, meanwhile, was scornful of the administration's stated willingness -- downplayed by Wolfowitz on Wednesday -- to take on Saddam without international support and without fully developed battle plans.

"At some point, you can't just . . . jump out of an airplane and figure out what you're going to do when you get on the ground," he said. "It doesn't work that way. Warfare is a deliberate activity that requires deliberate planning."